World of Warcraft Midnight Madness!

World of Warcraft Midnight Madness!

Having the lucky break of living in southern CA, I decided to attend Blizzard's midnight release and dev signing. I arrived at Fry's Electronics around 8pm thinking I was still fairly early, only to notice that the parking lot was already full. Walking to the store front I noticed that the line was already well underway. I started to search for the end of the line, beginning at the front doors. It curved around the front corner and ran along the side of the building. It went back even more until it turned around and started along the backside of the building. By this time I am wondering how many copies Blizzard brought to this little event. Finally, I reached the end of the line about wondering what my chances are of getting the game. At the end of the night all I could say was ¡°Wow.. and I thought I had it bad¡±.

As time went on, more and more folks started to arrive. Soon the line went from the back of the store to up the other side. I passed the time talking with fellow WoW players about the game and MMORPGs in general.A little while later (don't recall exact time.. around 10pm) I happened to notice a fairly large group of folks along the back corner fence. Wondering if this was just a big group of friends I moved out a bit only to see that this was actually the line. It had completely gone around the store, up to the back end of the parking lot, along the back and side fence, only to come back around to us.

At this point we estimated the line to be around 2000 folks waiting. (By the way.. Thanks to the two guys who actually went along and counted everyone in line then came back and told us the total which allowed us to estimate just how big things were getting).

By the time the signing actually started at midnight, the line went around the store, around the outer parking lot edge, and back down the street. When I finally got to the store doors around 1:20am, the head count up to us was just past 900. Estimating the head count by this time gave us the figure of +5000 people. I remember a Blizzard dev saying they had only 4000 copies lead me to think again ¡°Wow.. and I thought I had it bad¡±.

After purchasing my copy of the game, (choosing an Orc box; ¡°For the Horde!¡±) I then finally got to meet some of the art devs and get my box signed by several of them. Returning home finally at 2:00am, I did what every other tired, exhausted, cold WoW fan would do. I created my new account and jumped in game eager to start the fun.

All in all, the event was a major success for Blizzard as well as the fans. We all got our games and got to meet the devs and the huge outpouring of fans showed Blizzard just how much we appreciate their hard work and sleepless nights (which I can't believe they did again for this event). So to sum up.. Great job Blizzard and I hope you can get some well-deserved sleep.